It has long been recognized in the commercial and industrial communities and generally accepted in the insurance, security and property protection industries that losses by theft and vandalism may be greatly reduced through the employment of sophisticated electronic surveillance systems and the physical presence of security personnel. These security measures however, come only at considerable expense, not only for their initial installation and maintenance, but also for the ongoing cost of manning and monitoring them. Unfortunately, the community of thieves, burglars and assorted miscreants who are responsible for the requirement for such systems have become adept in dealing with these electronic devices and have devised a number of means for by-passing or circumventing the systems, resulting in the requirement for increased numbers of security personnel and a consequent further increase in security expense. In the commercial and industrial areas the costs associated with security are passed on to the consumer and are contributory to economic inflation.
In the residential sector many different means of deterrence to unauthorized intrusion are available to supplement regular police patrols, ranging from complex electronic audio and visual surveillance, with window and door sensors, motion detectors, central monitoring and private drive-by security patrols, which are beyond the economic means of most homeowners, to the most simple electric timers which turn lights on at dusk and off at bedtime to give a residence the appearance of occupancy.
There appears to be a statistically provable consensus in the loss-prevention industry, that while electronic protection is infinitely more desirable than none at all, the greatest deterrent to unauthorized intrusion is the physical presence or human occupancy. This consensus would appear to be validated by the fact that large numbers of residential burglaries are perpetrated during the hours of daylight when the occupants of those residences are at their places of work or education. The average, if indeed there be such, house burglar apparently fears confrontation and possible identification and meticulously avoids invasion of occupied premises. Fearing apprehension, the burglar is generally unarmed as he goes about his work, for he does not anticipate challenge and will face a lesser charge than if apprehended while in possession of a weapon. Communications devices, such as the telephone and the answering machine associated therewith tend to serve the miscreant in the pursuit of likely targets for his craft. A telephone that goes unanswered following ten continuous minutes of ringing, which may be audible from outside a targeted residence, is a reasonably good indication that no one is at home, as is the telephone which is answered by a machine several times over the course of a few minutes. The simple expedient of a telephone bell switch to disconnect the ringer of the telephone at times when the residence is unoccupied negates the possibility of determining occupancy by this method, as the miscreant, unable to hear the telephone ringing from outside the residence, cannot be certain that the number which he has dialed is, in fact, the number of the targeted residence, thus causing him to seek another target.
The hours of darkness present yet another set of clues as to the status of occupancy of a residence or place of business. A residence, or a place of business, which is unlighted during at least the early hours of darkness is a ready indication of the lack of human occupancy and is thus an open invitation to burglary. As a corrective measure, a number of adjustable, electric timers having the ability to energize and de-energize electric circuitry to illuminating devices at pre-selected times have become commercially available. While these timer switches do indeed give the impression that someone who is operating these lighting devices is present within the structure, the very precision with which these timers activate and deactivate the lights diminishes their value as a deterrent to illegal entry and theft, i.e., the clock-like precision imparted to these devices by the synchronous motors which power them, cause the lights to be energized and de-energized at exactly the same time each day. It is highly unlikely that any individual is so precise in his daily routine that he would illuminate and extinguish lights at the exact same second each and every day, an action not likely to be overlooked by a professionally meticulous thief in searching for a likely target upon which to practice his nefarious craft.
The prior art fails to reveal development of invention for the purpose of deterrence of unauthorized entry by this means and only five examples of radial light projecting devices were discovered. Palmieri, in U.S. Pat. No. 2,611,071 disclosed an "Electric Lamp Having a Revolvable Shade Structure;" Ream in U.S. Pat. No. 3,393,310 an "Ornamental Display Device;" Steam, et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 3,885,865 an "Automatic Kaleidoscope;" Ohashi in U.S. Pat. No. 4,858,079 a "Light Projecting Toy Musical Box;" and Stotler, et al., a "System for Stimulating the Appearance of the Night Sky Inside a Room." The first three of these inventions rely upon the heat generated by an electric lamp for their activation, the fourth upon spring-powered clock work, while the fifth simply projects star-like images upon a ceiling and imparts no movement.